Friday, March 20, 2009

7,812 Words About Songs

Now this, this is something. As a guide to the South by Southwest music festival, Paul Ford has written six-word reviews of 1,302 Mp3s submitted by bands. A couple of thoughts here:

In the age of Twitter (though I fear -- no, loathe -- Twitter), perhaps there’s room for this kind of criticism. Ford actually gets across a lot about these songs in six-word bursts (see below). It probably wouldn’t satisfy if applied to novels or movies, but pop songs lend themselves to these pithy reactions.

My other response is less complicated. It’s gratitude. As I get older and more detached from “the scene” -- in quotes not because the scene is a ridiculous term, though it is, but because I was never anywhere near it, even when I knew more about bands -- it’s remarkably helpful to have this primer. You can click on any of the songs that Ford reviews to hear the band.

For a band called Ear Pwr, and their song “I like waterslide,” Ford’s review is simply: “I hope this band is ten.” Still, he gave it four circles (out of a possible five; he also rates every song on this scale). So, I clicked and listened. It took less than a minute for the song to drain -- no, assault -- my will to live.

So, Ford’s ratings sometimes seem a little off, but that might be because he listened to 1,302 songs, and perhaps that’s not healthy. He is funny throughout. Here are a dozen more of his descriptions, along with the number of circles he gave the song under review: